Lord Tyler writes for ePolitix.com ahead of his oral question to ministers about electoral reform.
In May 1997, the then Labour opposition promised that the public would be given an opportunity to vote, in a referendum, on improvements to the electoral system for the House of Commons, following a detailed inquiry about, and report on, the options for change.
Tony Blair set up an all party commission under the late Liberal Democrat peer Lord Jenkins of Hillhead. He gave them a tight remit to come up with a system that would take account of the need for i) broad proportionality of the number of seats won and the number of votes polled in the country; (ii) stable government; (iii) more voter choice; and (iv) the maintenance of a link between MPs and geographical constituencies.
Not everyone was happy with the criteria – these were a compromise – since "stable government" can be Labour/Tory shorthand for "governments with strong Commons majorities", which may be stable but aren't responsive to public and parliamentary opinion.
The Jenkins commission reported on time in 1998, recommending a new system called 'alternative vote plus' (AV+), which neatly combined fairness and the retention of the MP/constituency link. Then the Blair government kicked the whole issue into the longest of grass. So much for the 1997 manifesto promise.
My question simply asks what has happened to that commitment. If the minister replying claims that the latest effort to legislate for a referendum on the alternative vote (no 'plus') fulfils their promise, then I have to say that this is really bogus. It's not only 12 years too late, but it doesn't enable the public to choose a genuinely fair system of voting at all.
It may be a tiny step in the right direction, since it would marginally improve the choice open to voters, but in no way meets the requirements originally set by the government itself. Far from achieving "broad proportionality", the system could actually serve to exacerbate the effect of big national swings.
Meanwhile, it seems that the Conservatives are determined to prevent the public from voting to reform the system. They seem to think that the crisis of confidence in politics and Parliament can be wished away by Westminster plotting rather than letting the people of Britain have their say.
This whole episode is just another example of Labour breaking a manifesto undertaking. If the government can't do better than that after 13 years, why should anyone take seriously the promises given by parties in a few weeks' time?
Lord Tyler is Liberal Democrat constitutional affairs spokesman in the House of Lords, and former shadow leader of the House of Commons. He was MP for North Cornwall between 1992 and 2005.
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